…and I can start counting down for my vacation. I have decided that I am going to issue a statement to the young ones in the family; No babies or weddings in 2009. Why bother…they never listen anyway…and the babies are always welcome. This Saturday I am working the late shift – the first one in a long time. That again means that I have been spending time scrapbooking until now.

I did join Ashley Wren`s design school. She is giving me so many ideas for scrapbooking themes, that I had to get a notebook for my own ideas. I have to get them down on paper before I forget. I am getting older and forgets the most important things. We are not allowed to show our work in public before the class is over, so for now I will just show you my notebook.

My notebook for Ashley Wren`s design school.

I also have a new card to show.

Card nr. 24- using paint and trancparency.

The card was fun to make. This weekend I have some more card to make, if I can get my self to focus on something else then Ashley`s prompts. Ok, I better get ready for work.

I did have other plans this evening. I started out working on my Funday Monday layout. As always there was something missing in my tool box. We were supposed to use a 2×2 inch punch. Did I have that? No. So I had to do it myself. I was working happily when the mail came in, my prints from the wedding had arrived.  I just had to pick them up…

It took me three hours to get the photos in the albums.

All 600 hundreds of them.  And there is more to come.  I am not sure whats next, but I better let the bride look through this and make some decisions. There is some beautiful shots here, there are some not so good,…. and the photos that will haunt her forever. I can`t wait to work with this, but I might want to use the long winter nights to work with those happy moments.

I did not get to finish my layout to night, so I showing those I tried to upload last night. The first one is for the challenge at Scrapping.no, using some other persons handwriting. I had to peek in to one of my boxes and I found some old letters.

Where did we go?       Good question.      Memories from my youth.

1982.

We travelled the world.

We walked for peace.

We thought we could change the world for the better.

We were involved.

We cared.

We drank beer every day.

We loved each other.

And we sent letters written on bar notes.

….the good times…..

So, here is a part of what Stacy Julian said to my confusion about her Have more FUN class.: 

“I hope it is clear that for me, scrapbooking is NOT just a hobby or set of skills/techniques that I use to preserve pictures. Scrapbooking is the way I LIVE my life — it is the lens through which I am processing and sharing my experience as a human being. Scrapbooking and the creative process are to me, magical things that can teach you what is most important to you, before it’s too late.”

I knew it. I knew there was a message hidden in all this FUN stuff. I think one of the reasons I had a hard time taking in all this stuff is because this is how I do it already. When you start a new class you expect to learn something you don’t already know. Because all this is pretty new to me I don’t have any set way of doing it. I am ready to try anything. What I have learned in this short period of time is that; there is no right or wrong way to do this. And the most important thing is to enjoy doing it.

I finished my butterfly project. I got a cactus in my back trying to photographing this so you better like it. I may not survive, but the cactus did…

If you click on the frame you will see the pick……

I did a lot more today, but wordpress is having problems with uploading images so it will have to wait until they have solved their problems. While working with my pages I finished listening to my book. It is written by Anne B. Ragde and loosely translated it is called; a cold day in hell. If I should talk about the book I would say it was all about dogs and it was walking very close to porn. I enjoyed the listening.

…with Barbara Carrol started today. I have been waiting for the BPS classroom to open all day. That did not happen before I came home from work this afternoon. I guess the timezones are having fun with me. I have read and heard and I am still as confused as I was yesterday. I do believe that it will turn in a few weeks. To be honest as I tend to be….I still haven`t turned my camera to manual. But, one of these days I will. Barbare said; take your camera outside and take pictures – that is the only way you will learn. I can`t deny that fact.

This weekend I might get some fresh air. We have not been promised the best weather but you never know around here. This Saturday, Molde international jazz festival starts. That is the big happening during the summer. A festival is always better in warm nice weather.

Besides the photography class I made a 12×12 layout this evening. I could get used to this format. I only bought the page protectors to see if this was something I could like. I might go for a 12×12 album and mix all the formats in one. Already do 8×8 in my letter album and both of them goes in the 12×12.

“I got a plan”. Yes she did. While her grandfather and I looked at her she got her self all soaked. Funny girl.

…and for once I had a very productiv day at work. The summer is still on hold, but it still looks good for the weekend. Darci gave us a “the how to do” layout number 12 today. I didn`t get why a bakers dozen involves 13 eggs, but I am enjoying myself so I don`t care. So, here it is Egg number 12:

Elin and Kristian with their great grandparents Karen and Ansgar. I was looking around for a photo and found all these great pictures from last summer. I had forgot all about them.

In Tena`s  class we learned how to make transparencies. That was fun. Never knew I could make them myself. i will do this again sometime.

I enjoyed making art journals after taking a three days tutorial with Rhian.  Even without the Gesso. Of course I had to buy a bucket of Gesso. It has been standing in a corner for two weeks now. This evening I found it, and I just had to try again. I probebly need to get back to Rhians files and see how to use this stuff, but for a little while I had fun.

Translated it reads something like this; Good girls goes to heaven, bad girls go as far as they want…

At Scrapping.no it has been a show and tell about gardens and outdoor space this last days.  I am not posting a photo of my space. But in this intimate setting I am showing, just this once…

At 52 card pick up the class is dismissed for the weekend. But i knocked the top of my egg number 10 at ; a bakers dozen. The layout is showing baby Kristian and his grandfater last May.

My mojo was at home so I did egg number 11 while I was at it. This one was supposed to be a two page spread, but I could not get myself to put 11 strips of paper across two pages so I converted it to one page. That worked as well.

This is baby Elin last summer, blowing bubbles. Her grandfather makes sure she got a LOT of water and soap……….

…out of my apartment and settled in my new scrap-room….

It is so good to finally get all the dust and the stuff out of my living room and the kitchen. I have not had time to get everything in order in here. OK, let me be honest. Getting in order has not been my priority. To busy scrapbooking. I finished the pages I have been working on the last days. Darci gave us this great sketch the other day that was just right for me. I have some really horrible photos that has been moving around with me for a lot of years. Not knowing what to do with them, and unable to get them out of the house.

In 1991 I visited USA. I came home with a lot of pictures of hotel rooms and some really bad party pics. I have no idea who the people are and where they are taken. (Those were the days). Now I have made those pages and the rest is out of the house.

Los Angeles…

Las Vegas…

New York…

I had fun making my third card today. I really enjoy this class.

Now, before going to bed I will do a little update on the wedding page.

….having this kind of life, just doing nothing….

I skipped Darci`s challenge at Big Picture today. It was kind of lame; putting rubbons on the flower pots might be fun, but…not for me. Instead I took Mayas challenge at Scrapping.no. Maya got this great idea last night. After a rather shitty weekend at the forum, with high temperature discussion’s about everything but scrapbooking it was time to get to the scrapping.

The challenge is to do 10 pages of Elsie Flannigans 52 challenges. We are not supposed to be finished before 30. July, but I got a lot to do later this moth so I started right away. The first one is posted in the wedding page, and here is the next;

It is our own little HE-man. The big hero 20 years ago. Maybe hard to see from the photo, but the photo is from a family party. This is several meals later….and Tor was often seen without a shirt.:) Last week we had a hot discussion about portrait layouts and journaling. I am not so good with the journaling, so when I have something I want to tell I put an 8×8 page protector inbetween my pages. Sometimes I have one more picture from this “thing” wich I put on the front, stashing it with some leftovers and write the story on the back. Like I did with this one:

I better keep up the scrapping, there is 8 more to do….

…and it seems to be my lucky day.

We can see the sunshine again and that feels good. Last night was cold and wet and even I started to long for summer and sunshine. It was nice to find a new “egg” in the mail today. I found the egg that Darci told us to collect and the envelope to go with it. Can not believe how my egg fitted with what I had put in the envelope we were told to use.

When I started to do this page I thought of what Stacy said yesterday. Don’t forget your extended family and start documenting what they mean to you. So today it is all about Tor and how he always is there for me.

This was a fun page to do. I will make some more later today. Now it is time to do some cleaning before the weekend begin.

The last project in the first part of my BPS class is done. This was just a small project at the end of the first part and came out looking like this:

All this talk about roots reminds me of a family story.  My grandparents were given silver as a wedding present in 1927. This was later given to my aunt. When she wanted to sell it so she could buy something else she wanted, one of her children looked at her and said: you can not sell our roots.

That Christmas every one of us was given a silver spoon with a tag saying;

This is your roots.

Somehow this story is connected with what I am working on at the moment.